Different Day, Same Shit.

The president began by giving background on the civil war in Syria, and what the US government has done. Interestingly, Obama pointed out how he has resisted the calls for military action. Obama talked about Assad’s use of chemical weapons and called the images, “sickening.” The president said that, “The civilized world has spent over a century trying to ban them.” The president laid out the evidence that Assad was behind the chemical weapons attack on August 21.

While making the case for strikes on Syria, Obama pointed out that he has spent four and half years trying to end war. The president directly answered several questions that have dominating the public debate on Syria. He promised that he will not put American boots on the ground in Syria. He said that he would not pursue open-ended strategy like in Iraq and Afghanistan. He said that he would not engage in a prolonged bombing campaign like in Kosovo. The president said that the Assad regime does not have the capacity to threaten the US military. The president also said that Assad has no interest in escalation with the United States.

The president answered the question about an air strike strengthening al-Qaeda by arguing that terrorists will benefit more from an unstable Syria. The president walked the line by also speaking strongly about the role of diplomacy in resolving this.

President Obama then announced that he was asking Congress to postpone the Syria vote until the diplomatic track has been exhausted.

This speech was framed by the media as Barack Obama trying to sell the public on war, but what he really was doing was keeping the pressure on Syria while pushing forward on his diplomatic objective. The media questioned whether Obama could walk the line between discussing a military strike and diplomacy. The president did both with relative ease.

The reason why the president was able to make this argument is because he isn’t arguing for war. This isn’t about whether Obama convinced the American people. This is about Obama convincing Assad that his best course is to embrace the diplomatic solution.

The above from Jason Easley pretty much sums up my feelings on the president's speech this past week. Giving Assad a way out through diplomacy while reminding him of the firm backhand that'll await him otherwise was perhaps the best answer. Not a hard and fast head-first charge into the brink, nor a complete backing-out that would leave the president exposed in so many ways.

Personally speaking, drawing a red line on chemical weapons was perhaps the president's first (and perhaps only) tactical mistake regarding the Syrian crisis. All it resulted in was the Assad regime...or possibly rebels hoping to illicit a western intervention...using sarin gas and other deadly chemical weaponry on civilian populations. For his attempts to deliver a firm response against the use of chemical weapons, he was now obligated to respond to said use, preferably via military strike. It's what John McCain and many others would have wanted.

Thus, the president was trapped in between a rock and a hard place - act on Syria unilaterally and spend the rest of his term dealing with the fallout (accusations of warmongering from liberals and unconstitutional from conservatives, possible blowback from pro-Assad forces, potentially opening up yet another front in the War on Terror) or appeal to Congress, as "constitutionally required" and spend the rest of his term dealing with the fallout (accusations of being weak on Assad, getting cockblocked by Congress on yet another issue of importance, Assad and other regional leaders getting emboldened by a supposed lack of action, etc).

It wasn't surprising that the president sought a diplomatic response instead of an immediate attack. That diplomatic response turned out to be effectively strong-arming Vladimir Putin into bringing one of his client states to heel instead of throwing millions of dollars worth of cruise missiles and precision munitions in the general direction of Damascus. It also wasn't surprising that opponents tried taking the shine off of the president's deft diplomatic strokes while at the same time affecting a teenage crush on Putin. More on that later...

Okay, you’re asking here about the Obama administration’s not-so-subtle signals that it wants to launch some cruise missiles at Syria, which would be punishment for what it says is Assad’s use of chemical weapons against civilians.

It’s true that basically no one believes that this will turn the tide of the Syrian war. But this is important: it’s not supposed to. The strikes wouldn’t be meant to shape the course of the war or to topple Assad, which Obama thinks would just make things worse anyway. They would be meant to punish Assad for (allegedly) using chemical weapons and to deter him, or any future military leader in any future war, from using them again.

The above quoted comes from Max Fisher's recent Washington Post piece, "9 questions about Syria you were too embarrassed to ask," a sort of Syrian Civil War for Dummies guide to help the average schlub keep up with current events. This answers question #7: "Why would President Obama just lob a few cruise missiles at Assad and call it a day?"

The answer lies with question #6: "Why hasn't the U.S. shoved its collective foot up Assad's authoritarian ass until he can taste our Freedom™ and Liberty™-flavored shoe soles?" Because, as Fisher explains, all of our other military options would literally make things worse:

• A full-on ground invasion would be Iraq all over again, only this time it's Barack Obama's presidential ass in the sling.
• An air strike? Forget about it. Too much time and political capital needed to maintain a no-fly zone a la Iraq.
• A targeted assassination of Bashir al-Assad would just open up a power vacuum for some other asshole or group of assholes to fill, putting the U.S. and ordinary Syrians right back where they started.
• Giving the Syrian rebels all the weapons they can tote and letting God/Allah sort them out wouldn't work, either. Too many opportunities to accidentally outfit the next Taliban with decent weaponry for dominating future internecine conflicts. Besides, the Saudis gave Syrian rebels some weapons and look at what happened with that.
• Doing nothing is also an option and it's one some on the left would rather Obama take. But doing nothing puts a bigger dent in his credibility in foreign matters than doing something.

So the only option left on the table is to smack Assad on the wrist with a cruise missile-shaped ruler and hope he's shook enough to stay away from chemical weapons for the foreseeable future.

Personally, I'm not so sure that this will be enough. We're talking about a guy whose goons have had no compunction against raping and killing civilians, children included. As far as everyone's concerned, Bashir al-Assad is a Bad Dude, as are is his majority-Alawite armed forces. To send any sort of message to Assad, it'd have to be a rather painful one - and there's always the fear of innocents accidentally sharing that pain.

According to Omar Dahi, the answer involves action that eschews actual military intervention of any form with something that actually helps the Syrian people:

What should be the response to these events? The answer for those who care about the fate of Syrians is the same as it has been to the ongoing violence previously, which is to push for a political settlement and an immediate cessation of violence coupled with humanitarian aid for Syrians.

A US- or NATO-led attack, which appears to be imminent, is likely to be disastrous for Syrians (as well as Lebanese and Palestinians). If the attack is intense enough to completely destroy the Syrian regime it will destroy whatever is left of Syria. If it is not, it will leave the regime in place to retaliate where it is strong, against its internal enemies, except now having its nationalist credentials bolstered as having fought off US aggression. Either way the strike will be devastating to millions inside Syria, not to mention the millions of refugees and internally displaced populations who are living hand to mouth and who depend on daily humanitarian aid that will surely be disrupted or stopped. There is no such thing as a surgical strike, and no possibility in a country as densely populated as Syria for an attack that does not incur civilian casualties. This is excluding the fact that US foreign policy in the Middle East, past and present, including its own complicity in chemical weapons attacks, makes it impossible not to be cynical about the motives behind this attack. Moreover, in the past two years people within the region became convinced that US policy towards Syria is dictated—as before—by what benefits Israel, which had not desired a total regime collapse but was benefitting from a perpetual conflict in its northern border so long as it remained contained.

It's not just Israel that has its eyes on Syria. Russia would very much like to keep its naval port on the Mediterranean while Iran would someday love to have the same. The Saudis seem to be working to cajole Russia into backing away from Assad, but the way it's going about it is likely to make things even worse.

In the short term, there seems to be nothing that can be done. As Fisher explains, the long-term ramifications are just as bleak: the various Syrian factions are likely to continue killing one another for years until fatigue sets in or someone achieves something resembling a victory. Afterwards, a precarious peace among numerous ethnic groups - at least until something somewhere sparks up yet another conflict.

We have communicated in no uncertain terms with every player in the region that that's a red line for us and that there would be enormous consequences if we start seeing movement on the chemical weapons front or the use of chemical weapons. That would change my calculations significantly.

The above quoted is President Barack Obama warning the Syrian government and its president, Bashar Hafez al-Assad, what would happen if it used chemical weapons to fight and neutralize the various rebel factions in its ongoing civil war.

It's also a quote that's been rehashed, reheated and given it's own unique garnish by countless other officials in and around the White House. So much so that the original intent was quickly lost to the winds:

The idea was to put a chill into the Assad regime without actually trapping the president into any predetermined action,” said one senior official, who, like others, discussed the internal debate on the condition of anonymity. But “what the president said in August was unscripted,” another official said. Mr. Obama was thinking of a chemical attack that would cause mass fatalities, not relatively small-scale episodes like those now being investigated, except the “nuance got completely dropped.

That's the thing about tough talk in the geopolitical arena - it makes you and your country appear strong and resolute, but it gives you little room to wiggle out of a showdown if and when the time comes, which in turn makes you look like a complete chump.

And damned if someone in Syria didn't go ahead and use those chemical weapons. U.S. intelligence points to the Syrian government as the responsible party. However, recent reports weave a much different narrative, from a Saudi-sourced delivery from intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan intended for Al-Queda-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra, to numerous rebels who simply didn't know what they had their hands on, leading to their deaths and approximately 1,400 others.

Even more intriguing is Saudi Arabia's role in the anti-Assad column. According to various sources, Prince Bandar went into talks with Russian president Vladimir Putin using a classic carrot-and-stick approach: kick Assad to the curb and we'll give you some sweet, sweet crude and look after your gas contracts. Otherwise, we know plenty of Chechens who'd love to ruin your winter Olympics. Meanwhile, Putin dismissed U.S. claims of chemical attacks as "utter nonsense."

But the big story isn't how Turkey, once a significant backer of Jabhat al-Nusra is now having second thoughts about having its Seal of Approval on a wayward product. Or how Syria is lining up to be yet another stepping stone in the U.S. geopolitical game of hopscotch towards its true target, Iran. Or even the possibility of anti-Assad rebel groups pinning the blame for the chemical attacks on the Assad regime in hopes of some good ol' fashioned American intervention.

Nope, it's about how Congress has suddenly found its principles, forcing the president to go through it to authorize any military action whatsoever on Syria.

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The whole issue of congressional approval for military operations has been, for lack of a better word, iffy. World War II was, by most counts, the last major war that received congressional approval. Since then, running these sorts of things past Congress was more of a formality rather than an absolute necessity, as proven at various points by Reagan, Clinton and both Bush the Elder and Younger. And thanks to the War Powers Resolution of 1973, U.S. leaders have as much as a 90-day window to commit military forces wherever needed sans said congressional approval.

This isn't to say that clearing these sorts of things through Congress isn't the proper thing to do. Even the president thought it was fitting and proper to go to war only after Capitol Hill gives the OK. But the sudden objections against unilateral military activity from the right wing seems a tad hypocritical given the relative lack of formality concerning the junior Bush's military forays into Iraq and Afghanistan. It all has less to do with any actual concerns that House and Senate GOP members may have and more to do with political posturing and a continuing case of Obama Derangement Syndrome.

From the left wing comes the usual concerns about Syrian blood on American hands. People who are already disappointed over the president's stance on drones will likely be further disappointed if the U.S. enters the conflict. Those who thought the president would base his time in office as someone who'd completely eschew overseas conflict in favor of more peaceful and non-interventionist solutions may also be disappointed with his actions. Between disillusioned liberals and disgruntled conservatives, the president is in between a rock and a hard place.

To paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, there are no "known knowns" when it comes to Syria. U.S. military intervention here means diving into the unknown. At best, the president will end up with a replay of the recent Iraq War and its aftermath on his hands. At worst, the debacle of yet another "unwinnable war" will likely have him facing impeachment by emboldened Republicans. It's little wonder the president has so far only committed to aerial strikes - fighter jets and drones sound more appealing than putting actual boots on the ground.

Of course, that doesn't count the wide-ranging geopolitical effects that are sure to reverberate throughout the Middle East and the world. Who's to say that a U.S. military strike against Assad's forces won't set off a new wave of terrorist attacks against the U.S., or if Russia decides that the U.S. presence in Syria is a bridge too far and plans some sort of retributive measure in response? What if Israel sees the president's supposed indecisiveness on Syria as a sign of weakness and initiate their own course of military action? What about the implications of Saudi involvement in trafficking chemical weapons for use against the Assad regime? Is that something that the U.S. is secretly in on?*

Drawing a line in the sand in the first place might have bolstered the president's credentials as a tough, fearless leader among many, but it also comes with its consequences. Fortunately for him, asking Congress for official permission to act on behalf of anti-Assad forces gives him an out. In the event that GOP congressmen give the thumbs down on a U.S. intervention into Syrian affairs, the political fallout lands squarely on Congress while the president avoids any backlash for his bold rhetoric. Also, he won't look too much like a chump for having his hands tied by the good folks on Capitol Hill.

* Seems far-fetched, but it doesn't hurt asking, considering the CIA's lengthy and storied history.